Hi John,
>It is a sad irony of the system dynamics movement that one of their
>favorite examples of a stock-and-flow diagram includes feedback loops
>having to do with firing and hiring people -- as if to legitimize
>management thinking that people are "expendable" or to encourage the
>"adjustable workforce" as an endorsed way of dealing with issues.
>
>I do not see this ["people are expendable"] as an underlying value of
>system dynamics nor other kinds of systems thinking -- quite the opposite
>in Senge's work, for example -- but I don't like the unintended message
>being sent by the use of such example models. I would be very happy if I
>never again saw a system dynamics model that included firing/hiring loops
>(especially when naively and exclusively connected with short-term
>economic outcomes.)
Rather than seeing these example models as unfortunate or even harmful,
can we look at them as incomplete? What could we add to the models that
would still be useful from an SD point of view (people DO come and go in
organizations and there is a dynamic impact in many respects) while
expanding our understanding of why a quantitative view of the dynamics is
less than a full and beneficial understanding of what's at stake?
Bill Braun
The Health Systems Group
- Physician Leadership Training
- Simulation Modeling for Healthcare
http://www.hlthsys.com
--Bill Braun <medprac@hlthsys.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>